


Skipping Stones

by starsqwub



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 13:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19906201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsqwub/pseuds/starsqwub
Summary: There’s something about Finn that can’t just be luck—can’t JUST be sheer charisma. The force is strong with this one... Poe’s 99% sure of it.





	Skipping Stones

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first lil’ stab at a SW fic!! Love these characters and this world. Hope you guys enjoy.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7—

The stone skips across the lake like a tiny silver comet, leaving the moonlight’s reflection rippling behind it. Poe can’t break seven skips tonight.

“How do you do that?” Finn says.

Poe shoots a look over his shoulder; Finn’s sitting at the trunk of a lakeside tree, wearing that verrrry serious “I’m focusing” face that Poe’s grown so fond of.

“No rock skipping in the First Order?” Poe says, eyes wide and shiny. Finn pulls a face, then slowly gets up, using the tree behind him for support. (He’s been out of the medbay for nearly a month now, but Finn’s road to recovery from his encounter with Kylo Ren will be challenging. Poe watches him carefully, chewing his lip, then subtly relaxes once Finn’s upright and steady.)

“Here, I’ll show ya—“ Poe starts, pointing out all the just-right rocks on the lake’s pebble shore (“The first and most crucial step.”), modeling the correct, professional hold (“Like THIS,” Poe emphasizes, maybe touching Finn’s hand for a second too long), miming the ideal throwing angle (“It’s pretty tough to nail on the first try, trust me.”). He chucks another rock as an example:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7—7.

“Damn,” Poe breathes. “Anyways, give it a shot, buddy.”

Finn scans the shore—Poe grins, there’s that so-serious look again—and picks up a damn near-perfect skipping stone, smooth and sharp. He gestures to Poe with it, and Poe nods, trying to appear non-plussed. “That’ll do it”, Poe says.

Finn gazes out to the lake, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet; with a lick of his lips, he sends the stone flying. Poe counts:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10–and then the stone sinks into the shivering, shimmering lake.

Damn.

“Hah!” Finn laughs, jumping up once. He gives Poe an eyebrow waggle—Mr. Big Deal—and starts looking for more skipping stones.

Poe shakes his head in an attempt to diffuse his own dumb, goofy grin. (Poe’s lovestruck smile will betray him, someday soon.) Finn looks like a little kid, scooping up handfuls of pebbles and gently thumbing through them in his palm. It’s nice for a change, Poe thinks. They’d been taking these late night walks along the lake near the base to stick-it to sleeplessness. These were never chatty walks; usually Poe and Finn would just fumble along, eyes blurry, arms occasionally brushing against each other in the darkness. A silent, secret understanding, shared for one long loop around the lake.

Tonight though, something was lighter. Something in the two of them. Even D’qar’s two moons shone with a *something* that felt soft and good. In the back of Poe’s head swirled soft voices—memories of old conversations with General Organa, and even older ones with his mother. The Force, they whisper. This lightness in the night. The Force, the Force, the Force...

Finn chucks another skipping stone—10 skips again. The stones Finn throws seem to laugh and chirp their way across the water. So fitting. This guy, Poe marvels with a chuckle. Familiar butterflies flit about in his stomach. But the butterflies soften for a moment, and his eyebrows draw together as a question begins to form in his mind, echoed again by traces of the general and his mother.

“Hey Finn,” Poe says slowly, kneeling down for another skipping stone. He picks over rocks, and over what words he might say next.

“Hey Poe,” Finn replies lightly, eyes glued on the horizon as he lets another stone fly.

“Are you...” Poe chooses a stone, tosses it casually into the air— “...force-sensitive?”—and catches it cleanly.

Finn snaps to attention suddenly, his casual smile dipping into a hard frown. “What, like a,” his face scrunches up—“like a jedi?”

“No. Well. Yes. Like one,” Poe wonders, maybe just as confused as Finn for a moment. “But you don’t have to be a jedi to be strong in the force.”

“I’m not like Rey.”

“Well, yeah.” Poe turns the stone over in his hand, studying it a little too hard. “No one’s like her, I guess. But, again,” he tosses the stone, not really skipping it this time; it plunks loudly into the lake. “These things aren’t mutually exclusive.” Poe digs his hands into his pant pockets and takes a couple steps closer to Finn, pebbles crunching under his boots. “Take General Organa, for example. Strong in the force. Not a jedi.”

Finn shakes his head, his mouth a harsh line. “I’m not like the general either.”

Poe opens his mouth to reply but catches himself and that too-familiar temper bubbling up in his core. (He doesn’t usually fight this particular feeling. He lets it bubble, likes the burn. But with Finn, things are different.) He tosses his head back. The bright moons sit high above them and the lake; Poe sighs, grabs a pebble near the heel of his boot, tries again: “And why’s that,” he asks pleasantly.

“Not a hero.”

THWACK, Poe pitches the pebble straight into Finn’s thigh. “Try again, pal!” Poe quips.

“OW!!” Finn jumps so high he could’ve hopped into hyperspace. “What the hell Poe—HEY!”

Poe’s arm raises with another pebble at the ready. “If you try your ‘not-a-hero crap’ with me again Finn, SO HELP ME,“ he gestures with his pebble for emphasis, “I WILL USE THIS.”

They wait in a standstill—then, Finn huffs. “Some good guy you are,” he says, but Poe sees the smile hiding in the corners of Finn’s mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Poe offers, big toothy smile betraying him all over again.

“I know.” Finn settles again at the base of the nearby tree, his eyes and smile a little far away now. “So... you believe in the force, then.”

“Oh yeah. Big time, no question. You?”

Finn pulls his knees up to his chest, still not really looking back up to Poe. “...Yes,” he says (decides?). His face slowly darkens. “Look, I just don’t get why—“

Poe mock-raises his pebble ammo again. “Finn—“

“I’m being serious Poe,” Finn raises a hand defensively, “I just don’t get what you’re asking.”

Poe wilts at how lost Finn sounds. He struggles with a reply (another rare, Finn-centric phenomena: Poe Dameron finding himself at a loss for words, so very often). But then he remembers the lightness in the air and the brightness of the moons and the *something-ness* about tonight that made him ask the question in the first place.

He closes the distance between them in two strides, then kneels, offering Finn the pebble in his hand. Finn cautiously takes it. Poe opens his mouth—waits, and then, slowly: “You’re... really good at skipping stones.”

Finn blinks. “You... think I’m force-sensitive... because I throw... rocks... good.”

Poe scowls. Very smooth, Poe, very smooth. Tries again: “Yes. No. No, you know what—yes.”

“Poe?” Finn asks with blatant concern.

“You have a—*something*, Finn.” Poe explains. “I don’t know how else to describe it. You’re so quick. You take things and you run with them, and then you end up outrunning the rest of us along the way.” Poe clears his throat—maybe the admiration’s coming on a little too strong. He sits back and motions at Finn with both of his hands. “Look. Your instincts, right? Like in the TIE fighter—“

Finn shrinks a bit, looking incredulous. “You taught me the controls—“

Poe holds up a finger. “Barely. And you still saved our asses.” Now Poe holds up two fingers: “Exhibit B: you held your own with Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.”

“I had no choice, I needed a weapon.”

“Finn, my blaster is ‘a weapon’. That lightsaber is *legend*. My blaster didn’t CHOOSE me to wield it—“

“Luke’s lightsaber chose Rey,” Finn says carefully.

“I think it’s pretty damn clear that it chose you too, pal!” Again with the temper, Poe thinks, but he blazes ahead anyways. “And why do you think that is?”

Poe doesn’t realize how far forward he’s really leaning, waiting for Finn’s reply. “The force...?” Finn tries weakly.

“Yes!” Poe cries, something like delight dawning on his face. (The force has never been something so personal to Poe; his family raised him with a deep respect for it, and General Organa’s influence on him significantly deepened that respect, but it was right here and now with Finn where it suddenly felt real, like a candle held between them, burning soft and low. “I know it’s in you, Finn. There’s something about the force and you together that makes so much sense, and the galaxy is better off because of it.”

They sit like that for a moment in total silence, save for the lake lapping up against the pebble shore.

Finn’s eyes dart about for a few seconds, but refocus back on Poe again. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” Poe says, still smiling wide.

Finn shakes his head with his brows tightly knit—and now here’s where Poe’s smile starts to slip—“If nearly getting myself killed by Kylo Ren makes me strong in the force—if lucky shots and rock-skipping make me force-sensitive, then the force HAS to be strong in you too, right? In an actual hero, in someone who deserves it? Why would it be wasted on me?”

“Wasted?” Poe bursts. “Finn, I swear, it kills me every time you do this—“ Poe lifts a hand to his temples, temper, temper—“this isn’t about me, I told you—there’s just something about you.”

“Why are you so insistent that there’s any ‘something’ to me at all,” Finn says, sounding spent.

“Because I—“ There it is again, the phenomena, the loss for words. But then again, Poe wasn’t at a loss at all.

Because I love that something, he wants to say. There’s something to you Finn—something, everything?— and I love it so much. And I wish you could see all this goodness in you—whether it is the force or something else entirely—I just wish you could see it, and love it too.

For a terrible, terrible moment, Poe wonders if he really did say this all aloud, judging by the new look to Finn’s eyes. They were gazing right through him, Poe was certain of it. But the look, he quickly gathers, is probably because Poe’s frozen in place, cheeks flushed, mid-sentence—and surely (surely!) not because Finn *heard* what Poe *felt.* Surely.

Finn’s boot taps softly against Poe’s in an uncannily timed reply. “Poe?” he says softly, searching.

(Surely...)

“I... I’m sorry,” Poe stands suddenly, stepping well away from Finn. “I didn’t mean to be so pushy about it. I’m sorry. There’s just... something about tonight, you know?” He gestures at everything—the moon, the lake, the *something-ness* of it all. “I thought it felt... Nevermind.”

He turns away and sighs deeply, giving a childish kick to the pebbles at his feet. Smooth. Real smooth.

Finn doesn’t reply right away. For good reason, honestly; Poe felt like he was drunk on who-knows-what. Lack of sleep, maybe. But certainly (surely) not the force—

“I felt it too.” Finn pipes up. “Tonight was different. In a good way.”

Poe turns back to Finn. “Oh,” he says.

Finn smiles, and it’s sweet, and Poe immediately feels his own dopey smile reply. (Traitor.) “Help me up?” Finn asks, holding a hand out.

Poe’s there in an instant, lifting Finn up from the tree, supporting him (maybe needlessly) with a gentle hand around his waist. “Ready to head back to base?” Poe offers, but Finn shakes his head.

“Wanna try something first.”

(*Surely* he can’t know, Poe thinks.) “Yeah? Like what?”

“A jedi mind trick,” Finn replies, the faintest smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

(Impossible. Totally impossible.) “So you admit it, then?” Poe wonders. “That there is something in y—“

But Finn’s really, really looking at him.

And he feels the *something-ness* again. The lightness in the air and the brightness of the moons. Poe looks to Finn, to sweet, serious, good Finn,

and he kisses him.

Just like that, apparently. Underneath two very bright moons.

He leans back, and Finn’s still there, still looking, smiling even—a smile suspiciously similar to the one Poe wears just for Finn.

“Was that the mind-trick,” Poe whispers, gripping softly at the collar of Finn’s shirt.

“It was something,” Finn whispers back.

And they kiss again.

——————————————

The following night, Poe goes out on his own to the lake, picks up a stone, lets it fly—

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.


End file.
